


Skipping Stones

by hitchcock_winter



Category: Emergency! (TV 1972)
Genre: AO3 exclusive, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Post-Rescue, Slash, it was a rough run, oblivious idiots, the boys are just trying to eat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitchcock_winter/pseuds/hitchcock_winter
Summary: Because the trip from colleague to partner to friend to brother had happened so quickly that somewhere along the line Roy's heart forgot to stop.
Relationships: Roy DeSoto/Johnny Gage
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	Skipping Stones

**Author's Note:**

> A very big thanks to Guardy (@johnnys-green-pen on Tumblr and Guardy here) for being my second set of eyes when you've got a bunch on the go. Inspired by Trapelo_Road475's work - if you haven't read their stuff, what are you waiting for??

They had pulled over for hot dogs and soda and the hope that the ringing in their ears would stop before they had another call.

It was a run that permeated, one that penetrated, one that wouldn’t be washed away with a shower. Roy’s mind was a kaleidoscope, food barely noticed as it made a slow journey into his body. Flashing lights. Civilians. Johnny. Air tanks, and smoke-filled hallways painting white walls black, faces black, fates black. Johnny. A little girl, a broken rung, a short fall. Johnny. IVs and biophone calls and a wailing mother and Johnny. Sirens getting quieter, pulse getting louder, he’s only going to hospital with the patient, he's okay, Johnny’s okay.

Through all the colours, that one word, one name, over and over again.

Because the trip from colleague to partner to friend to brother had happened so quickly that somewhere along the line his heart forgot to stop; train stuttering to brake on the rusted tracks, skipping stone thrown across the lake that went to the horizon and finally fell in deep, deep, deep down, leaving Roy sputtering and drowning.

He pretended it wasn’t true, tried to bury it with that part of him, the one that was complicated and forbidden and goddamned hell and sometimes even a little like heaven, late at night, when he was in bed and Joanne and the kids were asleep and he allowed just a little piece of him to hope and think and remember. 

He pretended it wasn’t true, as hard as he could, so hard that it hurt, even as he lay in his bunk at the station with his back turned to his partner, guessing how many inches away Johnny was, he could reach out and just touch him, maybe, or was it just too far?

Johnny was always just too far except when it mattered most, when one of them was on the ground and way too cold and one of them working above and way too warm and panicked and trying their best to be a paramedic and not a partner or friend or. Or sometimes they were both on the ground, and Roy hated and needed those moments the most, the ones where he would reach out and place his hand on Johnny’s arm because he was fucking terrified, not to lose himself because he was already lost, but to lose Johnny, and sometimes Johnny would grab him right back. Those moments had been too close but it had brought them close enough and Roy would hold onto them – would hold onto Johnny – forever if he could.

And then there were the times Roy would just stop breathing, like his lungs completely forgot how to do their job, instinct and years of training be damned. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was usually in the silences, in the moments after the blood and dust had settled and neither of them were on the ground, they were climbing into the cab at the hospital wishing that it had been them instead and happy that it wasn’t, and the late California sun would melt the blue or green pallor off of his partner (-to-friend-to-brother-to-) into gold.

He’d look at Johnny when he wasn’t watching because after the worst moments Johnny was glowing, and Roy’d forget to breathe and it’d finally catch up with him with a hitch and a deep sigh. And Johnny’d throw him a soft, knowing glance, because he thought he knew, he thought Roy was also stuck somewhere in the aftermath trying to warm up or or calm down or somehow make the whole ride without losing control of his stomach. He thought he knew, because he usually did, they usually did, they spoke with glances and nods and chuckles and sniffles that were never feelings and always just a little bit too much dust, too much smoke.

Too much fire.

But Johnny didn’t know. He didn’t know how easily he could steal the life from Roy, how if Roy wasn’t driving and controlling a thousand pounds of steel, that sometimes it felt like he’d never breathe again.

Here they were, eating tacos and drinking soda, and the ringing was still there. The table was square and sheltered under a tall jacaranda from everything but the sun, privacy to pretend they had a moment to breathe, to pretend they _could_ breathe. Johnny sat, eyes overlooking the valley, soot still smudged and painting his face pale despite the afternoon sun. Roy was beside him, around the corner, more than close enough for partners but not close enough for Roy.

Roy stole glances through carefully mulled bites, trying his best to be only half-destroyed by the fire they fought and the fire he fought to forget. Johnny was quiet, too quiet, and still too, a film paused, a record ended. Johnny was never silent, not even in the stifling mid-summer nights and definitely not during the scorching August days, he was never silent unless something was really, really wrong.

It left Roy with a stomach full of seawater, because Johnny was an alleycat, a rough-and-tumble alleycat, who was supposed to howl and whine and lament to hide all of that insecurity and fear. But his alleycat was suffocating from that scene, still choking on smoke and dust and the lies of _she’s gonna be fine_ and the cries of mothers and sirens. 

_His?_

Roy flushed and turned away and blinked back the pain that accompanied the scoring of his insides any time he got anywhere near _what if_. No. It was the soda stinging at his eyes. Choking his throat. Goring its way through his stomach.

He heaved a sigh, and Johnny looked and gave him a crooked half-grin, one that didn’t meet his eyes, one that fell so quickly Roy didn’t have time to blink.

Then, without the grace of common sense or a second thought or self-preservation, Roy reached out to wipe that damned spot off of Johnny’s face, expecting and hoping the alleycat would swipe at him and be sore for a minute or five or the whole day, who could really tell? But in a skipped heartbeat and a skipping stone dropping down, down, drowning, there was no recoil, no growl, no _hey stop it_ and Johnny blinked in surprise, and looked up, and looked back down, and leaned just a little into Roy’s hand, so that Roy was cupping his cheek and oh.

Roy managed to barely smudge the dirt back and forth enough to blend it, on Johnny’s high cheekbone under his eye, and managed to clean nothing, and maybe he didn’t want Johnny clean, maybe they were always the closest to each other when they were filthy, pushed to the edges of the city and their sanity with the fluids and dirt and stench and just say it, _death,_ that clung to them in ways that everyone could see and in more ways that everyone could not.

Johnny driven to exhaustion from a call or a close call or a bad call was Johnny real and raw, without all of the pretense and pride and petulance. It was Johnny cracked open, bleeding, for Roy to see, and in those moments Roy saw naivete and self-deprecation and drive and hope and hopelessness and sometimes he wished everyone could see it, could see how perfect his partnerfriendbrother really was, and most times he wanted to keep it all to himself.

And Roy was still holding his partner’s face and Johnny looked back up at him, and it was all there, the _I shoulda done more_ and _why wasn’t I enough_ and the _someone please make it go away_.

And Roy wanted to make it go away and before he could remember that he was supposed to pretend he was leaning forward, and his lips were on Johnny’s, and they were rough and cold and a little wet with saliva from eating tacos and drinking soda. And Johnny gasped, just a little, just enough to tie Roy’s stomach and heart and _everything_ into knots, but he didn’t pull away _he’s not pulling away_ and then Johnny was kissing him back.

They’re tentative, at first, a whisper of a movement that was small enough Roy could feel Johnny tremble under his hand and under his lips and big enough that he had to remind himself breathe breathe breathe, because if he didn’t this was where he’d die, but that’d be okay, in the end.

Then it changed into something a little more certain, a little more something, that picked up speed and Johnny’s breath hitched in just a way that made Roy melt a little further, press a little deeper, and he moved his hand to the back of Johnny’s head and thought he could hold him there forever because it was his turn to stop breathing, dammit. 

But it was Roy who finally pulled away, his hand still holding the air for a fraction of a second before dropping it and feeling his face go hot. Johnny’s eyes dropped even faster, brown irises swimming back and forth on the table in front of him and Roy could feel him trying to figure things out, could feel the confusion coming off of him in waves.

“Sorry,” Johnny said finally and it stung Roy’s insides in all the right and wrong places because he was never sorry for the things he should be sorry for and always sorry for the things he shouldn’t be.

“Johnny,” Roy’s voice was low and stuck at the back of his throat and that was the only word that mattered, even though he knew this was the time to say so much more.

“I, uh, I never meant to –”

Johnny was pale and his eyes were wide and he wouldn’t look at him, dammit, because he was in full-on panic mode. And it dawned on Roy that Johnny somehow thought it was all him and not Roy and the repercussions of that realization were electric, burning through all of Roy’s veins and nerves and down to his very soul until he thought he would just pool onto the grass because it meant that, maybe, late at night back at the station Johnny had been wondering about how many inches away Roy was too.

And Johnny was still backtracking, the alleycat in a corner but this time out of fight, like he had been in the downpour too long and had nothing left, like this was the end just get it over with already. “– I won’t do it again you don’t hafta tell on me–”

“Johnny,” Roy’s voice was stronger now because Johnny was still beared wide open and still asking _someone please make it go away_.

“If you’re mad I understand just-just we can pretend it didn’t happen and please don’t be mad but if you want to work with someone else I understand –”

“ _Johnny_.” It was the stern tone he used when he meant it, this is serious, Johnny pay attention and he lifted his hand to Johnny’s face again and held him tighter, fingers at the back of his neck and thumb on the side of his face and he looked him in the eyes and Johnny looked back, startled. And there it was, behind the self-deprecation and hopelessness and _why wasn’t I enough_ – hope. Hope so sharp and sudden and bright, bright like Johnny’s eyes against the sun, bright like Johnny’s smile when he was laughing at Roy or with Roy, that Roy forgot to breathe.

And when he found his breath again he said it one more time, but this time it was soft and this time it was his turn to be real and raw and bleeding his whole self out into the dying day. “Johnny.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” Hope so sharp and bright and hot like the late afternoon sun that was casting longer and longer shadows, hot like the fire that they did not get to in time, hot and guarded like he knew the flames would just gobble him up, would chew him up and spit him out like all of the pretty nurses at the hospital so he’d better not get too close, better run away while he could.

And Roy kissed him again, and somehow it’s deeper, somehow his heart is further up in his throat, somehow the stars have punched through the hazy sky even though it’s midday and it’s Los Angeles and those aren’t the kind of stars here. And Johnny lets out a small noise, against Roy’s mouth, a noise like he’s breaking and a noise that breaks Roy, this is it, this is where it all begins and ends and there’s no going back now.

It lasted for days and it lasted only a moment and it was a cold plunge into a spring of water and the back of a hand against a hot door, only seconds away from the wail of a siren and a hospital and a grave, and again Roy pulled away first, he knew if he didn’t Johnny’d let him kiss him for the rest of their lives and that in itself, that realization that Johnny’d let him, sent a shiver of fear and longing and hot, liquid joy up Roy’s spine.

“Oh.” Johnny blinks, and is breathless, and then he’s grinning, excited and bashful, that damned crooked grin that Roy had to pretend didn’t scrape his insides raw and make his chest tight and steal his goddamned breath away. “Okay.”

Or maybe he didn’t have to pretend anymore.

“I, uh,” Roy is breathless too, and he cleared his throat, because his voice kept getting lost somewhere between Johnny’s narrowed eyes and the long line of his tanned neck. “We should get back.” He leaned away, pulling against gravity, heavy on land after a vicious water rescue, but his eyes were on Johnny’s and Johnny’s were on his.

“Yeah,” Johnny agreed. His eyes finally dropped to Roy’s uneaten taco. “Are you going to finish that?”

Roy gaped his incredulity, because he had just spent forty days and nights on a merry-go-round and the vertigo was pulling tight at his stomach but this was still Johnny, and nothing had really changed even though everything had. “Really?”

“Yeah.” The goddamned crooked smile. Those goddamned bright eyes. 

Roy found his breath, and sighed, and said, “You’re insatiable.”

“You like it,” Johnny responded, reckless and impetuous and irresponsible with glee and a smile of warm sap bleeding from bark that Roy knew would get all over him and never come off and dear lord, he was okay with that. And Johnny grabbed the taco before Roy could even tell him it was okay, and it was almost like yesterday, almost like this morning, almost like ten minutes ago before… just before.

Roy rolled his eyes, because he would always roll his eyes, even now, probably forever, because this was who they were and why did that ever have to change?

Johnny ate the taco in silence, but this time Roy wasn’t worried, even though Johnny was never silent, not even in the stifling mid-summer nights and definitely not during the scorching August days, he was never silent unless something was really, really wrong and now Roy realized maybe if something was really, really right. Roy wasn’t worried, he just knew that he had stolen Johnny’s words like Johnny’d steal his breath and that made them even.

“Um, Roy,” Johnny said when they had climbed back into the squad.

“Yeah?”

“Do you… what do you think, I mean, maybe, didja want to get breakfast tomorrow?”

And Roy should have hesitated, because the calculus of hasty drives home and backpacks and cereal and goodbye kisses should have been complicated, should have been worrisome, should have felt more devastating than it was, but Roy wasn’t devastated, Roy was exuberant. Reckless. Hopeful. 

“Yeah, Johnny. Let’s get breakfast.”


End file.
